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Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A layered cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, sweet milk, flour, baking soda, molasses, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ribbon Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs and sweet milk, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

Flavour and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the molasses, raisins, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon.

  2. Divide the dough in half and add the molasses mixture to one half.

  3. Bake the two mixtures in 5 layers, assembling them while warm.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds tenderness and richness.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, helping the layers rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour gradually and stirring only until combined keeps gluten development low, so the layers stay tender rather than tough. Overmixing toughens the crumb.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream, molasses):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream, molasses. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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